Starting his first road game in Jordan-Hare Stadium with injured quarterback hero Tua Tagovailoa watching from the sideline, the redshirt sophomore’s fingerprints were all over the latest wacky Iron Bowl in a series built on chaos.

Four touchdown passes. Two pick 6s. And the hold on the would-be 30-yard tying field goal.

Auburn 48, Alabama 45 and the Crimson Tide’s playoff streak is kaput.

It was a night when 515 total yards and six touchdowns weren’t enough. For a second time this fall, Alabama walked away with a loss despite crossing the 40-point barrier.

And for Jones, his role in the loss is a complex one. He completed 26 of 39 passes for 335 yards and four touchdowns. Needing seven yards on fourth down in the closing minutes, Jones scrambled for 18. He even caught his own pass on third and goal when it was blocked back his direction by future first-rounder Derrick Brown.

Alabama offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian drew up an offensive plan featuring several new wrinkles and strategies to put Jones in a position to succeed against a talented Auburn front.

“I think we definitely were not going to put the game on Mac in terms of just throwing the ball all over the yard,” Nick Saban said. “And we wanted to have balance in the offense and I think Sark did a great job of that. So, we moved the ball well enough on offense to win the game. Obviously, you can’t give the other team 14 points, so that’s a problem.”

In a three-point game, the two turnovers arguably caused a 21-point swing.

Jones’ first interception was returned 29 yards for a touchdown by Smoke Monday.

“I’ve been making that throw since I was 5-years old, a hundred thousand times,” Jones said, “and I missed the throw to Jerry (Jeudy) and they picked it off and scored. It was a bad throw and it was my fault.”

That put Auburn up 17-10 in a six-minute span that included 38 combined points.

The second interception was perhaps even more costly. With Alabama driving 74 yards on 11 plays, the final snap came on first-and-goal from the two-yard line. In a play that resembled Roy Upchurch’s game-winning touchdown catch against Auburn 10 years earlier, a rushed Jones forced a pass to Najee Harris. The ball hit him in the back and Zakoby McClain caught the ricochet for a 100-yard sprint. Instead of Alabama going up 37-31, it was the Tigers taking that advantage in another wild mood swing in a game packed with them.

“I think it was just a pressure look and I should have just thrown it away and kicked the field goal. It’s definitely a learning experience. But, 10 times out of 10, I usually do that in practice and the one time I try to squeeze it in there, it wasn’t a good idea by me.”

Saban liked the balance of an offends that passed for 335 yards and ran for another 180. He said the line blocked well for Harris’ 146-yard game that included 27 carries. The five false-start flags among the 13 Tide penalties for 96 yards burned an Alabama offense that outgained Auburn 515-354 in defeat.

Crown noise played a factor in the false start confusion, Jones said. At one point, right tackle Jedrick Wills expressed his frustration huddling up with the offensive front.

“We just had to have a better system in terms of how we were going to go about it,” Jones said. “…You know, you have to learn from it. We really have got to fix it because it’s going to come up in future games.”

There were the bring moments, too, for Jones.

His first touchdown was a delicate 3-yarder to Henry Ruggs on the drive after his first Pick 6. He hit Waddle on a perfectly thrown 58-yard pass up the middle to put the Tide up 31-24 late in the first half. Waddle brought in two more touchdown passes from Jones after halftime -- both of which snatched leads back for Alabama.

The first of those two was a 12-yarder to cap a 4-for-5 drive with 63 passing yards in response to the 100-yard Pick 6.

Saban called Alabama’s red-zone issues “the difference in the game” with the Tide scoring on 3 of 5 trips. The 30-yard missed field goal in the closing moments would have tied it at 48 had it not clipped the upright. Kicking into to teeth of Auburn’s student section, Joseph Bulovas had Jones holding the attempt.

“It was good,” Jones said of the snap. “I mean, we just missed it. It is what it is. Joe has done a good job and I love Joe. He’ll make that field goal but he missed it, obviously. It is what it is.”

Jones final shot at Iron Bowl heroism slipped away when a five-yard illegal substitution flag on 4th-and-4 allowed Auburn to kneel out the win.

The third-year sophomore walked off the Jordan-Hare turf Saturday night as his rival’s fans stormed it. Blank faced and dirtied from his complicated Iron Bowl start, Jones knows the phycological test to come.

For the first time since the 2013 Kick Six loss bounced Alabama from national title contention, Jones will quarterback a Tide offense into a bowl game devoid of championship stakes.

“I think we have a lot of fight and we’ll bounce back,” Jones said outside a solemn Alabama locker room Saturday night. “We’ll practice hard and we’ll learn from this and I think it will be good for us in that matter and we’ll see what we’re made of when we play that bowl game. So, we’ll see how we fight back.”

Michael Casagrande is an Alabama beat writer for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.

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